I’m also giving Natalie Zea a character name upgrade to Max. I thought I’d be generous and save everyone the confusion as soon as possible.

TL;DR Max opens up some fight club/betting thing which she forces Barbie to compete in, Angie realises Junior is the fourth hand the mini-dome needs, Linda and Julia get to the bottom of the propane situation.

The plot is pretty evenly distributed this episode, but the Max/Barbie one is the most central to the town. Max is running a fight club and bar in the cement factory. Max forces Barbie to fight a match for her. In defiance, he throws the match (which he was definitely capable of winning), but Max bet (literally) on him dogging her, so she ends up winning anyway. Barbie then turns down Max’s offer to be her toyboy and limps back to Julia. Meanwhile, Julia stumbles onto Linda who is on the propane case from last episode. They raid Duke’s safe deposit box and find out that he, Big Jim and the Reverend were helping Max make drugs in exchange for her not allowing them in Chester’s Mill. Julia also finds out that her husband intentionally forced Barbie to kill him so a life insurance policy could wipe away his debt. Julia still wants Barbie, too. Meanwhile, Big Jim tries to find Max’s hideout. Instead he finds her abrasive mother (Mare Winningham). After some verbal slapfighting, Big Jim leaves her to drown in the lake. And Angie, Joe and Norrie recruit Junior to be their fourth hand, which leads to some CGI astral projection (see pic below).

Angie also fucking finally tells Joe about Junior kidnapping her.

I’m gonna have to give Under the Dome another passing grade. It’s somehow still keeping a lid on that melodrama. How long can this last?

My only real whinge would be about Big Jim leaving Mare to die. Both because this seems a bit extreme (all she did was mildly insult Junior for being crazy, which Big Jim has even said before himself), and because it’s rude to kill Mare Winningham. Where’s your respect? She suffered through Grey’s Anatomy to keep her career alive. Which puts her basically on par with Jesus. Show some decency.

Why I hate this episode:

Barbie’s turning down of Max, while in character, pissed me off. She’s so hot and rich and powerful and amoral. It’s like Under the Dome found my perfect relationship checklist. Barbie ain’t got no taste.

Holding what are essentially bumfights seems a bit unambitious for someone as accomplished and ruthless as Max. I can only pray that she has something more fabulous in store.

The mini-dome’s behaviour is a bit inconsistent. The Radio Engineer snoops around and finds it early on in the episode. When she touches it, it shocks her and sends her flying, also wiping her memory of it. Angie, Norrie and Joe attribute this to her being incompatible as the fourth hand. What about when Julia touched it, then? Think about it.

Junior finds Angie and co poking around his mum’s studio, looking at her (terrible) painting. He acts really violated and bratty about it. Dude, you kidnap people. Get some persepective.

Joe’s attempt to avenge Angie is also disappointing.

Though I like the fresh explanation for why Duke did the drug deal, it was a bit goody two-shoes with the whole “for the greater good” angle. Jeff Fahey deserves to be edgier than that.

Linda confronts Big Jim, wanting to talk about his involvement with the drug deal. She settles for a “we’ll talk about it in the morning” way too easily. Bitch, you’re the sheriff. Bring him in and talk to him now.

Oh, and now that Julia knows the truth about Barbie and her husband, Max no longer has any leverage over him. Which is a shame, because I wanted to see more sexual, blackmailing predation from her. It’s what she does best.

Reasons to watch:

On the plus side, Julia and Barbie have basically outmanoeuvred Max, and they haven’t even realised it yet. That’s efficiency.

Max’s offer isn’t half bad. She wants Barbie to be her manbag and they can live in the luxury she’ll buy through her business. Her method of treating his fight wounds, which involves straddling him and pashing, is okay in my book.

And when Barbie asks her what she’ll do if her business plan falls though and she can’t live to the standard she wants, she humourlessly replies that she’ll burn this fucking place down. I think I’m in love.

Julia and Linda make a good team. Over only one episode, they manage to put two of the show’s hanging mysteries to bed. Big Jim’s secret is out now, too. I look forward to how Julia and Linda’s approaches to it will differ.

Speaking of secrets coming out, Big Jim manages to coax the truth about Barbie (that he killed Julia’s husband) out of Mare. So now they both know each other’s shit. And Big Jim’s secret will presumably come to light soon, so what will Max even have left? Conflict!

And the other big secret, which I’ve been waiting to drop since forever, is Angie’s coming clean to Joe (and Norrie. Because that girl just hangs around, doesn’t she?) about Junior kidnapping her. I’ll give Joe some pity points for his terrible attempt at fighting Junior. He should have gotten some tips from Barbie.

Best line of the episode goes to Angie. Joe proclaims he’s gonna kill Junior, but Angie doesn’t like people who push in line: “If anyone’s gonna kill him, it’s gonna be me.” Can you? Please?

Max makes a seemingly arbitrary comment to Barbie about how she would never include prostitution in her black market scheme. Mare reveals her past to Big Jim: she was in his high school class, but had to drop out when she got pregnant with Max. She then become a prostitute to earn money. So maybe Max has more layers than simply “hot” and “cruel.” Not that I need anything more than that. I love you anyway, baby.

Barbie sheds a manly tear when he and Julia discuss what really happened with her husband. So fucking hot.

There’s a monarch butterfly caterpillar inside the mini-dome. I’m still holding out that Angie’s tattoo will be as prophetic as I mistook it for.

Oh, and the mini-dome is kinda cool when activated. No idea what any of it means yet, but it’s pretty.

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6 responses to “Under the Dome Season 1 Episode 10 – TV Review”

If you feel trapped and forced to hate-watch this awful TV show because you can’t stop watching until you find out how the dome work, remember that this is also a mediocre book. In other words, you can Google the book’s ending and find out how it all works and you don’t have to be milked for another year or more just to find out the disappointing so called “twist” at the end of this weekly, hate-generating, God awful TV show.